Inter-radio access technology interference coordination for multi-standard radio access networks

ABSTRACT

A method and system for coordinated interference suppression in a communication system. The communication system implements at least a first radio access technology via a first base station and a second radio access technology via a second base station. The first and second radio access technologies differ from one another. Information relating to an interference signal received at the first base station via the first radio access technology is received at the second base station from a first device associated with the first base station, At a second device associated with the second base station, an interfering user equipment accessing the second base station via the second radio access technology is identified. The identification is based on the information received from the first device associated with the first base station. Interference caused by the identified interfering user equipment is suppressed by the second base station.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and system for interferencecoordination between two or more different radio access technologies.

BACKGROUND

When operators deploy long term evolution, LTE, carriers within the samefrequency band as 2G/3G carriers (e.g., code division multiple access,CDMA), interference from a user equipment operating within the 2G/3Gradio access technology may interfere with reception of signals by theLTE radio access technology infrastructure. Conversely, interferencefrom a user operating within the LTE radio access technology mayinterfere with reception of signals by the 2G/3G radio access technologyinfrastructure. Interference is especially likely when multiple radiotechnologies co-exist in the same geographical coverage area and havecarriers assigned adjacent to each other.

FIG. 1 is a plot of a CDMA signal 2 after despreading and an LTE signal4 in an adjacent band. As can be seen, a portion 6 of the LTE signal 4interferes with the CDMA signal 2, and to a lesser extent, a portion 8the CDMA signal 2 interferes with the LTE signal 4. The problem is moresevere on the uplink than the downlink because the user equipment, UE,is often a low cost consumer product and cannot afford to have atransmission filter as sharp as the transmission filter of a basestation. The interference problem is exacerbated when an interferinguser equipment is far from its serving base station but near the basestation receiving the interference and is transmitting at maximum power,while a transmitter of another user equipment of a different technologyis in a power limiting situation and is experiencing maximum path lossto its serving base station.

There are existing solutions to address inter-cell interference within asingle radio access network, RAN, such as LTE. In such cases, a basestation such as an evolved node B eNB, performs interferencemeasurements and reports the measurements to other eNBs, which act tosuppress an interference signal. For example, in one solution, a staticallocation of a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, away from anedge of a frequency band may be employed with the disadvantage offragmenting uplink radio resources without adapting to changinginterference conditions. Another solution involves random frequencyallocation for physical uplink signal channel, PUSCH, with thedisadvantage of not removing interference by the PUCCH. Fractionalfrequency reuse may be employed, but fractional frequency reuse is notapplicable between different co-existing radio access technologies. Inthird generation partnership project, 3GPP, systems, an X2 interface maybe employed to address inter-cell interference, but this is notapplicable to interference between two different radio accesstechnologies. Another solution is to rely on a large guard band betweentwo potentially interfering signals, but this is spectrally inefficient.

SUMMARY

The present invention advantageously provides a method and system forcoordinated interference suppression in a communication system thatimplements at least a first radio access technology via a first basestation and a second radio access technology via a second base station,where the first and second radio access technologies differ from oneanother. According to one aspect, the invention provides for receivingfrom a first device associated with the first base station, at thesecond base station, information relating to an interference signalreceived at the first base station via the first radio accesstechnology. At a second device associated with the second base station,an interfering user equipment accessing the second base station via thesecond radio access technology is identified. The identification isbased on the information received from the first device associated withthe first base station. An interference caused by the identifiedinterfering user equipment is suppressed by the second base station.

According to another aspect, the invention provides an interferencecoordination device adapted to communicate with a first set of at leastone base station operating according to a first radio access technology.The interference coordination device includes a receiver, a processor,and a transmitter. The receiver is configured to receive informationrelating to an interference signal received by a second base stationoperating according to a second radio access technology, the secondradio access technology being different from the first radio accesstechnology. The processor is configured to identify at least one likelysource of interference originating in a sector covered by at least oneof the first set of at least one base station to produce an interferencereport, the identifying being based on the information received by thereceiver. The transmitter is configured to transmit the interferencereport produced by the processor to at least one of the first set of atleast one base station, the interference report having information toenable a base station of the first set to identify an interfering userequipment.

According to yet another aspect, the invention provides a communicationsystem configured to implement interference coordination between twodifferent radio access technologies. The communication system includes afirst interference coordination device configured to receiveinterference measurements from a first base station associated with afirst radio access technology. A second interference coordination devicein communication with the first interference coordination device isconfigured to receive interference control requests from the firstinterference coordination device based on the interference measurements,and to transmit first interference information to a second base stationassociated with a second radio access technology, the second radioaccess technology being different from the first radio accesstechnology.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the present invention, and theattendant advantages and features thereof, will be more readilyunderstood by reference to the following detailed description whenconsidered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a plot of a code division multiple access, CDMA, signal afterdispreading and plot of an interfering long term evolution, LTE, signalin an adjacent band;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary communication systemconstructed in accordance with principles of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for interferencecoordination between a first and second base station according toprinciples of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for interferencecoordination using interference coordination proxies according toprinciples of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for identifying aninterfering user equipment according to principles of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Before describing in detail exemplary embodiments that are in accordancewith the present invention, it is noted that the embodiments resideprimarily in combinations of apparatus components and processing stepsrelated to coordinated interference suppression in a communicationnetwork having at least two different radio access technologies.Accordingly, the system and method components have been representedwhere appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing onlythose specific details that are pertinent to understanding theembodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosurewith details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art having the benefit of the description herein.

As used herein, relational terms, such as “first” and “second,” “top”and “bottom,” and the like, may be used solely to distinguish one entityor element from another entity or element without necessarily requiringor implying any physical or logical relationship or order between suchentities or elements.

Referring now to the drawing figures, in which like referencedesignators denote like elements, there is shown in FIG. 2 a blockdiagram of an exemplary communication system 10 constructed inaccordance with principles of the present invention. The communicationsystem 10 has a first radio access technology 12 and a second radioaccess technology 14. For example, the first radio access technology 12could be code division multiple access, CDMA, technology, whereas thesecond radio access technology 14 could be long term evolution, LTE,technology. A first base station 16 operates according to the firstradio access technology 12 and a second base station 18 operatesaccording to the second radio access technology 14. Note that the basestations 16 and 18 may be at separate locations or may be collocated andshare equipment such as antennas, radios and baseband processors.

Each base station 16 and 18 may receive uplink signals from a userequipment 20. For instance, desired uplink signals from the userequipment 20 may be received by the base station 18 that is currentlyserving the user equipment 20. However, that same uplink signal may bereceived as an interference signal by the base station 16 that iscurrently not serving the user equipment 20. This can occur, for examplewhen the base station 16 of the first radio access technology 12 coversa sector that overlaps a sector covered by the base station 18 of thesecond radio access technology 14. For example, the user equipment maybe transmitting using an LTE carrier frequency of the base station 18,whereas a receiver of the base station 16 may be tuned to receivesignals at a CDMA carrier frequency that is adjacent to the LTE carrierfrequency. Energy from the LTE signal of the user equipment 20 may spillinto the adjacent CDMA frequency band of the base station 16, causinginterference at the base station 16.

In some embodiments, the base station 16 may scan by frequency to detectthe presence of interfering signals in a frequency band that is adjacentto an operating frequency band of the base station 16. The interferingsignal may be detected when, for example, the first radio accesstechnology is CDMA, based on the ratio of the measured received signalstrength indicator, RSSI, over each individual CDMA channel, and carrierreceived energy over noise, E_(c)N_(o), over the entirety of thefrequency band, where the two values for comparison having beennormalized per Hz. In the presence of interference to the right edge ofthe CDMA 1.25 MHz carrier, the compared ratio of these one or more CDMAchannels at the right edge of the carrier will exceed a predeterminedvalue over the filtered average ratio over the CDMA carrier. Theinterfering signal may be detected from measurements of uplinkinterference plus noise for each physical resource block, PRB, at a bandedge when, for example, the first radio access technology is LTE. In thepresence of interference to the left edge of the 10 MHz LTE carrier, forexample, the measured interference plus noise for the frequencies orsubcarriers at the left edge will exceed a predetermined value over thefiltered average over the entirety of the LTE carrier.

Interference measurements may be averaged over time to smooth out anyspurious interference measurements. The averaged interferencemeasurement may be compared to a threshold to determine whether toreport the measured interference to a first interference coordinationproxy 22. If the measured interference is to be reported to the firstinterference coordination proxy 22, the sector ID of the sector fromwhich the interfering signal is received is also reported. The sector IDmay be associated with a sector range, elevation and/or an angularsector, and GPS coordinates (and thus the interference report willinclude such information). The report may also contain a frequency orfrequency band at which the interference was detected, a level of theinterference, and a time stamp indicating a time at which theinterference was measured.

The interference measurements and associated information may becommunicated to the first interference coordination proxy 22. The firstinterference coordination proxy 22 may be collocated with a base station16 or may be separate from the base station 16. The first interferencecoordination proxy 22 may include a receiver 24, a processor 26, and atransmitter 28. The receiver 24 receives the interference measurementsand associated information from one or more of the base stations 16. Theprocessor 26 produces an interference control request based on theinterference measurements and associated information. The interferencecontrol request may include the frequency band of the interferencesignal, the power level of the interference, information concerning thesector from which the interference signal was received, and a timestampindicating a time of measurement of the interference signal. Thetransmitter 28 may transmit the interference control request to a secondinterference coordination proxy 30.

The second interference coordination proxy 30 may be collocated with abase station 18 or may be separate from the base station 18. Also, thesecond interference coordination proxy 30 may be collocated with thefirst interference coordination proxy 22 or separate there from. Thesecond interference coordination proxy 30 may include a receiver 32, aprocessor 34 and a transmitter 36. The receiver 32 may receiveinterference control requests from a plurality of other interferencecoordination proxies. The processor 34 integrates these interferencecontrol requests and identifies likely sources of interference byassociating the sector and frequency information contained in theinterference control requests with operating frequencies and sectorsserved by base stations of the second radio access technology. Thetransmitter 36 may send interference reports that identify sectors andfrequencies from which interference is likely to base stations 18 thattransmit at the identified frequencies in the identified sectors, alongwith time stamps that identify when the interference was measured.

A base station 18 receives an interference report and identifies the UEsin an identified sector that transmitted at the identified frequency atthe time indicated by the time stamp. The identification of aninterfering UE 20 may also be based on received signal strengthindicator, RSSI, reference signal received power, RSRP, and referencesignal received quality, RSRQ, measurements, whether or not the UE 20 isat its maximum transmit power, as well as determinations of UE range andproximity of the UE 20 to the base station receiving the interference.When the second radio access technology 14 is CDMA 1x/1xAdvanced, aninterfering UE 20 may be identified based on its power control headroom,received code power, RCP, and/or periodic transmit power report. Thelist of UEs determined to be interferers may be filtered based on aconfigured round trip delay threshold. Thus, UEs that are closed to thecenter of the identified sector of the first radio access technology orfar from the identified sector of the second radio access technology maybe filtered from the list.

Thus, in some embodiments, identifying an interfering UE 20 may includecorrelating a time at which the interference was detected by the firstbase station 16 to a time of receiving at the second base station 18 anuplink signal from a UE. Identifying an interfering UE 20 may includedetermining a distance of the interfering UE 20 based on a round tripdelay of a signal of the interfering UE 20. Identifying an interferingUE 20 may include determining a location of the UE 20 based oncoordinates of a positioning system received on an uplink controlchannel of the UE. The positioning system may be, for example, theGlobal Positioning System, GPS. Identifying an interfering UE 20 mayinclude determining the proximity of the interfering UE 20 to the basestation experiencing the interference. Identifying an interfering UE 20may include determining that the serving base station of the interferingUE 20 is not collocated with the base station experiencing theinterference. Identifying an interfering UE 20 may include determining adirection of the interfering UE 20 based on a direction of a signalreceived from the interfering UE 20. Identifying an interfering UE 20may include estimating adjacent channel leakage of the interfering UE 20based on a modeling of UE's uplink emission mask, for instance from 3GPPspecifications or pre-stored characteristics of various UE types, andcorrelating the estimate to the interference level from the interferencereport.

The base station then may issue a ticket to identified interfering UEsand take steps to reduce interference caused by ticketed UEs. Thus, abase station 18 may identify an interfering UE 20 at least in part bycorrelating a coverage sector of the first base station 16 with acoverage sector of the base station 18. As used herein, coverage sectorrefers to an angular sector of a base station that is generallyassociated with a directional antenna and may be specified by a range,an elevation and an angular sector. Also, or alternatively, the basestation 18 may identify an interfering UE 20 at least in part bycorrelating a frequency of the interfering signal to a frequencyassigned to the user equipment 20 by the base station 18. Also, the basestation 18 may identify an interfering UE 20 at least in part bycorrelating a time at which the interference signal was detected at thebase station 16 with a time of receiving an uplink from the UE 20 at thebase station 18.

Steps that may be taken to suppress interference caused by a ticketed UE20 include altering resource blocks assigned to the interfering UE 20and reassigning these resource blocks to other UEs based on adetermination that the other UEs to which the resource blocks arereassigned will not significantly interfere. This determination may bemade based on an estimated level of interference with other signalscaused by the other UEs. For example, the base station 18 may computethe location of other UEs and can estimate the likely interference levelto a reported sector of the base station 16 based on the other UE'stransmit spectral density, location, orientation, and measured RSSI,RSRP, RSRQ.

Steps that may be taken to suppress interference by a ticketed UE 20,may include altering resource blocks assigned to a physical uplinkshared channel, PUSCH, of the ticketed UE. For example, the allocationover PUSCH may be switched to a different frequency away from a bandedge of a frequency band of the second radio access technology that isnear a frequency band of the first radio access technology. Steps thatmay be taken to suppress interference caused by a ticketed UE 20 mayinclude reducing a transmit power of the ticketed UE 20 or causing theticketed UE 20 to distribute its transmissions over a plurality oftransmission time intervals, TTI.

Thus, interference suppression may include reassigning to the UEresource blocks that occupy frequencies separated from identifiedinterfering frequencies. The resource blocks may be reassigned to atleast one other UE determined based on an estimated level ofinterference with other signals received by the first base station. Theestimated level of interference may be based on at least one of UEtransmit spectral density, location, orientation, distance and reportedsignal quality.

Interference suppression may include preventing the interference UE frombeing assigned to a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH at the bandedge, and may include using a service aware buffer estimation algorithmthat avoids sending Scheduling Request SR on the PUCCH.

Interference suppression may include using at least one of an aperiodicChannel Quality Indicator CQI/RI on PUSCH, and an adaptive HARQre-transmission to allow for flexible scheduling of the ULre-transmissions in the time and frequency domain.

Interference suppression may include reducing a transmit power of theinterfering user equipment. Interference suppression may includeinstructing the interfering UE 20 to handover to a different frequencyin a band of the first radio access technology, or instructing theinterfering UE 20 to perform inter-technology handover to a frequencyband of the second radio access technology. Interference suppression mayinclude distributing transmissions by the interfering user equipment 20over a plurality of transmission time intervals, TTI.

For example, when the second radio access technology is CDMA1xRTT/1xAdvanced, interference may be suppressed at least partially byassigning a lower codec rate to an uplink transmission of the UE 20.Also, or in the alternative, the interfering carrier frequency may beremoved from an active set and other non-interfering carriers may beadded to the active set. When the second radio access technology 14 isCDMA EVDO, interference may be suppressed by adjusting reverse trafficchannel media access control, RTCMAC, parameters of the interfering UE20 so that it uses lower power transmission and shorter uplink packets.Also, or in the alternative, the UE 20 may be instructed to lower itsallowed reverse rate indication, RRI, limit. Also, in the alternative,the interfering carrier frequency in the active set may be removed orreplaced with other carriers which do not interfere.

In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the first interference coordination proxy22, in addition to sending interference control requests to the secondinterference coordination proxy 30, may receive interference controlrequests from the second interference coordination proxy 30. Thesereceived interference control requests are processed by the processor 26to determine likely sources of interference and to generate interferencereports sent to the base stations 16. Responsive to receiving theseinterference reports, a base station 16 may identify an interfering UEand suppress interference from the identified interfering UE.

As noted above, the first interference coordination proxy 22 may becollocated or merged with the second interference coordination proxy 30when the base stations 16 and 18 of each radio access technology arecollocated, to achieve faster access times. Thus, in the case that eachradio access technology shares a common base station, joint schedulingand interference prediction can be employed to avoid interferencebetween the two radio access technologies.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for determining aninterfering UE and suppressing its interference where the functions ofthe first and second interference coordination proxies described aboveare integrated into respective base stations 16 and 18. A second basestation 18 receives information about an interference signal from afirst base station 16 (S100). The second base station 18 identifies aninterfering UE 20 accessing the second base station 18 based on thereceived information (S102). The second base station 18 then takes stepsto suppress the interference caused by the identified interfering UE 20(S104). Exemplary interference suppression steps are discussed above.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for determining aninterfering UE and suppressing its interference using a first and secondinterference coordination proxy 22 and 30. Interference is measured at afirst base station 16 of a first radio access technology 12 (S106). Theinterference measurement is sent from the base stations 16 to a firstinterference coordination proxy 22 (S108). The sector from which theinterfering signal is received and the frequency of the interferingsignal are also transmitted to the first interference coordination proxy22. The first interference coordination proxy 22 transmits aninterference control request to the second interference coordinationproxy 30 (S110). The second interference coordination proxy 30identifies a corresponding sector of the second radio access technology14 and a corresponding UE transmit frequency and transmits aninterference report containing this information to each of a pluralityof base stations 18 of the second radio access technology 14 (S112). Abase station 18 identifies an interfering UE 20 based on information ofthe interference report (S114). The base station then takes one or moresteps to suppress interference by the interfering UE (S116). Exemplarysteps for interference suppression are described above.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for identifying aninterfering UE by a base station. A base station such as base station 16or 18 receives an interference report from a respective interferencecoordination proxy 22 or 30 that indicates a frequency and a sector ofthe interfering UE (S118). The base station prepares a list of activeUEs in the sector that are transmitting at or close to the indicatedfrequency (S120). UEs in the list of active UEs that are causinginterference in an adjacent sector and/or frequency may be identified(S122). This may be UEs having a transmit power exceeding a threshold.The base station may suppress interference caused by the identified UEs(S124). For example, the base station may instruct the UEs whosetransmit powers exceed the threshold to reduce their transmit powers.This can be done, for example, by changing the UE path loss compensationand the closed loop power control received target power through radioresource control, RRC, in order to lower UE transmit power.

As noted above, the base station may take other additional oralternative steps to suppress interference by an interfering UE. Forexample, the base station may cause the UE transmissions on the physicaluplink shared channel, PUSCH, to include information such as a channelquality indicator, CQI, instead of transmitting this information on thephysical uplink control channel, PUCCH, at a band edge. Another way ofreducing interference is to use radio resource management, RRM, featuresto avoid a voice over Internet protocol, VoIP, user from having to sendscheduling requests on the PUCCH. Another way of reducing interferenceis to use adaptive hybrid automated repeat request, HARQ,re-transmissions to enable flexible scheduling of uplink and downlinkre-transmissions in the time domain and the frequency domain so that there-transmissions can be moved to PUSCH resource blocks that cause theleast interference. Another method to reduce interference is to simplyallocate PUCCH resources away from a band edge.

The present invention can be realized in hardware, or a combination ofhardware and software. Any kind of computing system, or other apparatusadapted for carrying out the methods described herein, is suited toperform the functions described herein. A typical combination ofhardware and software could be a specialized computer system, having oneor more processing elements and a computer program stored on a storagemedium that, when loaded and executed, controls the computer system suchthat it carries out the methods described herein. The present inventioncan also be embedded in a computer program product, which comprises allthe features enabling the implementation of the methods describedherein, and which, when loaded in a computing system is able to carryout these methods. Storage medium refers to any volatile or non-volatiletangible storage device.

Computer program or application in the present context means anyexpression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructionsintended to cause a system having an information processing capabilityto perform a particular function either directly or after either or bothof the following a) conversion to another language, code or notation; b)reproduction in a different material form.

It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the presentinvention is not limited to what has been particularly shown anddescribed herein above. In addition, unless mention was made above tothe contrary, it should be noted that all of the accompanying drawingsare not to scale. A variety of modifications and variations are possiblein light of the above teachings without departing from the scope andspirit of the invention, which is limited only by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of coordinated interference suppressionin a communication system implementing at least a first radio accesstechnology via a first base station and a second radio access technologyvia a second base station, the second radio access technology beingdifferent from the first radio access technology, the method comprising:receiving, from a first device associated with the first base station,at a second device associated with the second base station, informationrelating to an interference signal received at the first base stationvia the first radio access technology, the information relating to aninterference signal including a time at which the interference signalwas received by the first base station; sending an interference reportto the second base station, the interference report including the timeat which the interference signal was received by the first base station;identifying, at the second base station, an interfering user equipment,UE, accessing the second base station via the second radio accesstechnology, the identifying including correlating the time at which theinterference signal was received by the first base station to a time ofreceiving at the second base station an uplink signal from a UE; andsuppressing, via the second base station, an interference caused by theinterfering user equipment.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theinformation relating to the interference signal includes at least one ofa sector identification, a frequency of the interference signal, and alevel of interference of the interference signal.
 3. The method of claim1, wherein identifying the interfering user equipment includescorrelating a coverage sector of the first base station with a coveragesector of the second base station.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein acoverage sector is specified by at least one of a range, location, anelevation and an angular sector.
 5. The method of claim 1, whereinidentifying the interfering user equipment includes correlating afrequency of the interference signal to a frequency assigned to a userequipment by the second base station.
 6. The method of claim 1, whereinidentifying the interfering user equipment further includes at least oneof: determining a distance of the interfering UE based on a round tripdelay of a signal of the interfering UE; determining a location of theUE based on coordinates of a positioning system received on an uplinkcontrol channel of the UE; correlating a estimated adjacent channelleakage level of the UE to the interference level reported in theinterference report based on modeling of UE emission characteristics;determining a proximity of the interfering UE to the first base based onrespective coordinates of the interfering UE and the first base station;and determining a direction of the interfering UE based on a directionof a signal received from the UE.
 7. The method of claim 1, whereinsuppressing an interference caused by the interfering user equipment,UE, includes reassigning to the UE resource blocks that occupyfrequencies separated from identified interfering frequencies.
 8. Themethod of claim 7, wherein resource blocks assigned to the interferinguser equipment are reassigned to at least one other user equipment. 9.The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one other user equipment isdetermined based on an estimated level of interference with othersignals received by the first base station, wherein the estimated levelof interference is based on at least one of UE transmit spectraldensity, location, orientation, proximity and reported signal quality.10. The method of claim 1, wherein suppressing an interference caused bythe interfering user equipment includes moving transmission of uplinkcontrol information of the interfering user equipment from a physicaluplink control channel, PUCCH, to a physical uplink shared channel,PUSCH, by using at least one of an aperiodic CQI/RI report, a serviceaware buffer estimation, and an adaptive HARQ re-transmission.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, wherein suppressing an interference caused by theinterfering user equipment, UE, includes at least one of: reducing atransmit power of the interfering user equipment; instructing theinterfering UE to handover to a different frequency in a band of thefirst radio access technology; and instructing the interfering UE toperform inter-technology handover to a frequency band of the secondradio access technology.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein suppressingan interference caused by the interfering user equipment includesdistributing transmissions by the interfering user equipment over aplurality of transmission time intervals, TTI.
 13. An interferencecoordination device adapted to communicate with a first set of at leastone base station operating according to a first radio access technology,the interference coordination device comprising: a receiver, thereceiver configured to receive information relating to an interferencesignal received by a second base station operating according to a secondradio access technology, the second radio access technology beingdifferent from the first radio access technology, the receivedinformation relating to an interference signal including a time at whichthe interference signal was received by the second base station; aprocessor, the processor configured to identify at least one likelysource of interference originating in a sector covered by at least oneof the first set of at least one base station to produce an interferencereport, the identifying of the at least one likely source ofinterference being based on the information received by the receiver;and a transmitter, the transmitter configured to transmit theinterference report produced by the processor to at least one of thefirst set of at least one base station, the interference report havinginformation to enable a base station of the first set to identify aninterfering user equipment, the identifying of the interfering userequipment including correlating the time at which the interferencesignal was received by the second base station to a time of receiving atone of the first set of at least one base station an uplink signal froma user equipment.
 14. The interference coordination device of claim 13,wherein the received information includes at least one of: anidentification of a sector of the second base station from which theinterference signal is received; a frequency of the interfering signal;an interference level of the interfering signal, and a time stampassociated with the interfering signal.
 15. The interferencecoordination device of claim 14, wherein the processor determines asector of a base station in the first set that corresponds to the sectorof the second base station from which the interference signal isreceived.
 16. The interference coordination device of claim 13, whereinthe processor integrates information about interference signals receivedby a plurality of base stations operating according to the second radioaccess technology.
 17. The interference coordination device of claim 13,wherein a likely source of interference is determined by identifyingbase stations of the first set that are communicating at a frequencyadjacent to a frequency of the interference signal in a sector thatcorresponds to a sector from which the interference signal is received.18. The interference coordination device of claim 13, wherein theinterference coordination proxy is located at a base station of thefirst set.
 19. A communication system configured to implementinterference coordination between two different radio accesstechnologies, the communication system comprising: a first interferencecoordination device, the first interference coordination deviceconfigured to receive interference measurements from a first basestation associated with a first radio access technology; a secondinterference coordination device in communication with the firstinterference coordination device, the second interference coordinationdevice configured to: receive interference control requests from thefirst interference coordination device based on the interferencemeasurements, the interference control requests including a time atwhich an interference signal is received at the first interferencecoordination device; and transmit first interference information to asecond base station associated with a second radio access technology,the second radio access technology being different from the first radioaccess technology, the first interference information including the timeat which the interference signal is received at the first coordinationdevice, enabling the second radio base station to correlate the time atwhich the interference signal is received to a time of receiving at thesecond base station an uplink signal from a user equipment.
 20. Thecommunication system of claim 19, wherein the first interferencecoordination device and the second interference coordination device arecollocated.
 21. The communication system of claim 19, wherein the firstinterference coordination device receives interference control requestsfrom the second interference coordination device based on interferencemeasurements from the second base station, and transmits secondinterference information to the first base station.
 22. Thecommunication system of claim 19, wherein the first interferencecoordination device is located at the first base station.
 23. Thecommunication system of claim 22, wherein the second interferencecoordination device is located at the second base station.